


And the End is Near

by Yangry



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Gore, Hallucinations, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-23
Updated: 2015-09-23
Packaged: 2018-04-23 02:37:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4859861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yangry/pseuds/Yangry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Josh is the only one who survived until dawn. He is not human anymore, nor wendigo, nor anything within human comprehension. As he sees the dead, hears the dead, he knows he is a force to be reckoned with. He killed seven people on that mountain, and that had changed him more than eating human flesh ever would.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And the End is Near

**Author's Note:**

> Practicing writing for Until Dawn, hoping to really get into writing for the fandom. There's so many interesting concepts to explore and the story of the game leaves many things to the imagination. Any help or advice would be very much appreciated!

He’d killed them all.

How easy it was to imagine he’d slit their throats, shot them in the head, sent knives through their bodies and cracked their skulls on rocks. Because he may as well have killed hem with his own bare hands; at least it was upfront, at least it was honest. And at least they could have died hating him instead of feeling responsible for him, feeling guilty over him, dying trying to save him. Because now they were dead, and now Josh felt that guilt, on top of all the horrible, terrifying emotions almost crippling him, almost chaining him to the mines as he made his escape.

He found Chris’s body first. He saw Ashley next, both their heads scattered on the cave floor. He picked up Chris's head, not for any morbid reason of his own but to confirm it was real. Because if it fell through his hands, if something freakish happened, he could convince himself what he was seeing was another hallucination. But it wasn’t. He could feel the blood and tattered flesh on his fingers, and when he put Ashley and Chris’s heads together, he knew that that’s how they’d stay until they were found.

The realization finally kicked in. He killed his best friend. He’d died and the worst of it was, Chris had wanted to help him. He knew it, deep down, but it got overshadowed by his pain and anger and betrayal and everything else that he lashed out at him, hurt him. He didn’t know what was worse- the thought that Chris hated him till the end, or that Chris died thinking of saving him, thinking that they could still make it out and that there was something inside Josh that was worth saving. Because really, in that moment, faced with the responsibility of his friends deaths, he felt there was nothing worth saving any more. He’d let everything good inside him rot and burn and wash away, left with a dark, broken shell of a person.

Suddenly. Ashley and Chris appeared in front of him and he knew he was back to the hallucinations again. Scars on their necks, their tears black, their eyes filled with anguish. They did not speak, like Beth and Hannah did, nor did they show him any hatred. They floated, their skin pale and lips blue. They looked as if the only thing they knew was pain. They were joined with each body he found. There was an empty hole in Sam’s stomach as well as the horrific burns. Mike appeared with no face, and in the place of expression scratched and tore at his blistered, charred skin. Jessica looked as is if she was always screaming, but no words were coming out, no prayers or calls for help received or answered. A constant stream of blood and an inky substance flowed from Matt’s mouth and Emily’s eyes. And as Josh looked at his own skin, he saw the very veins in his arms were jet black too. Something was running through his arms and bloodstream like a deadly poison.

Throughout all of this, he seemed to lose it more and more. He cried, he yelled, he went on his knees and begged these apparitions for forgiveness, but they couldn’t answer him. They looked at him with such a desperate, agonized look, he couldn’t stand it. They weren’t angry. They weren’t angry at him, they were in too much pain now. All they could do was pray to whatever God abandoned them that there would be hope. But there was none. Not even when the helicopters came from above and took him in. Everyone was still there. His rescuers sounded like nothing but buzzing in his ears, unnecessary yet relentless noise. He stood accompanied by every friend he killed, as they silently begged him for anything, though he could give nothing.

They finally hauled him out of the helicopter, and that’s when he began to hear the chant.

_“O death, o death, o death.”_

No one was saying those words, not even the ghosts. It was in his head, of course, coming out from his brain.

_“O death, o death, o death.”_

It sounded like they were calling, calling for death. Did these ghosts not realize? Were they in denial? He wished he was. But somehow, despite the horrible mess in his head, he couldn’t delude himself into thinking all he saw was a lie. They were dead. Why didn’t they know they were dead? He saw Chris’ mouth move in time with the words. Ashley’s, too. Though he couldn’t make out Mike’s lips, he saw a gap in his face which must have been where his mouth was, move. Matt and Jessica could not talk, but he could hear their voices. They chanted their ghostly harmony as he was guided to a room.

“You can’t hear them, can you?” He asked one of the interviewers.

“Hear what?”

Josh gulped. “The chanting.”

“No, we can’t.”

“I thought so.” Josh nodded, his hands trembling. The interviewer, a short blonde woman with an angular face, look concerned.

“We’ve found some information- you’re Josh Washington, correct?”

“No.”

_“O death, o death, o death.”_

Josh understood now. He understood their call. It was to him, their God, their killer. He understood what he was. He was hated by all, feared by all, a merciless, soulless force of nature. He was an entity not contained by his body. He was a dark energy, and his veins pulsed with the power that no living being could bear.

“Then... who are you?”

Josh smiled calmly. He felt calmer than he’d felt in years.

“My name is Death.”


End file.
